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Below the jump, Alex and my talk at last weekend’s Progressive Governance summit - it’s a four minute summary of our paper on multilateralism and global risks.

As Charlie noted here yesterday, lots of people are having a grand old time fulminating about the Gwyn Prins / Robert Salisbury article in the new RUSI Journal on risk, threat and security in the UK.  It’s not hard to see why their piece has aroused such passions:

The United Kingdom presents itself as a target, [...]

The ‘inbreeding’ row, sparked by Environment Minister (!) Phil Woolas, is yet to reach Pakistan - but it will and the consequences are sure to be ugly.
As far as I can tell, Woolas’s remarks were made to the Sunday Times and triggered an article with the headline: Minister warns of ‘inbred’ Muslims. On Sky News, [...]

Rowan Williams has just been on The World At One to say that in his view, sharia law will become inevitable in parts of the UK.  The interview is in advance of a speech he’s giving this evening, in which he’ll call for Muslims to be able to choose, in some circumstances (such as divorce [...]

Strange Maps is fast becoming my favourite website: it’s the only blog I’ve ever come across where I’ve scrolled all the way back to the beginning to read every post.  Here’s a small sample: a fascinating religious map of the US, shaded according to which denominations command majorities in each county. 

Blimey:
Pope Benedict XVI last night called off a visit to Rome’s main university in the face of hostility from some of its academics and students, who accused him of despising science and defending the Inquisition’s condemnation of Galileo.
The controversy was unparalleled in a country where criticism of the Roman Catholic church is normally muted. The [...]

The UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC) have just launched a major three year programme to work with religions on climate change.  Details:
The UN Development Programme (UNDP) and ARC will manage the programme which involves major traditions in eleven of the world’s faiths drawing up seven-year plans of action [...]

The right wing blogosphere in the US is, needless to say, having a field day about the jailing of Gillian Gibbons over the teddy bear incident in Sudan - just look at what Michelle Malkin has to say (see also David’s survey of comments a couple of days ago).
But in fact, the whole incident is very much to [...]

Head over to the BBC website for some eye-opening commentary from (mostly Muslim) readers on the British teacher who has been arrested in Sudan for allowing her class to name a Teddy Bear Muhammed.
Some are outraged by the Sudanese government’s actions. One Londoner writes:
This is unbelievable. I’m fed up of reading and hearing stupid incidents [...]

From BloggingStocks.com, the news that Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa is considering a Congressional investigation into an intriguing tax break: “whether it’s right that they avoid paying any taxes while their ministries contribute immensely to their personal wealth”. 
The site quotes the Wall Street Journal that: “Mr. Grassley said his investigation was prompted by complaints from [...]

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is back in the news.
Round-the-clock security keeps the Somalia-born Dutch citizen from meeting the same fate as her erstwhile collaborator, Theo van Gogh, who ended up shot eight times and half-decapitated. Hirsi Ali’s death sentence was pinned to his chest with two knives. It said in part:
There will be no mercy shown [...]

Archbishop Francisco Chimoio, the head of Mozambique’s Catholic Church, talking to the BBC:
“Condoms are not sure because I know that there are two countries in Europe, they are making condoms with the virus on purpose,” he alleged, refusing to name the countries.
“They want to finish with the African people. This is the programme. They [...]

On National Review, Jay Richards continues his push back against Evangelical Christians who support action on climate change. His advice? Stop being gulled by left-wing strategists:
No one expects throngs of Evangelicals to start voting for pro-choice Democrats. But much of the media agrees with the Washington Post’s infamous description of Evangelicals as “poor, undereducated, [...]

In the past few days, a vicious spat has broken out in the US counter-insurgency community.
On one side, the architect of a new lexicon, inspired by Koranic teaching, that aims to “remove the self-sanctifying ‘holy guy’ legitimacy from AQ-style and al Sadr-style terrorism.”
On the other, those who detect the sinister hand of the Muslim Brotherhood [...]

From the Los Angeles Times this morning: the news that the US Department of Defense was (until halted by an investigation by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation) intending to distribute “freedom packages” to troops in Iraq. What would they contain?
Not body armor or home-baked cookies. Rather, they held Bibles, proselytizing material in English and [...]

Here’s a purported future trend that has some on the right salivating - a rapidly Christianizing China acting as a natural counterweight to Islam. According to National Review’s, Mark Krikorian (bio):
Christianity has much better prospects in Red China than in Taiwan or Hong Kong (or Japan). It’s not just cultural characteristics that determine how receptive [...]

Heard the one about the World Bank President who launched a personal crusade against corruption in developing countries, only for the world to learn that he instructed the Bank to pay his girlfriend way over the odds for her job in the same institution?
Oh, you have? Well, how about this, then: Heard the one about [...]

The NY Times has a piece about an anti-war protest at the White House by thousands of Christians.
John Pattison, 29, said he and his wife flew in from Portland, Ore., to attend his first anti-war rally. He said his opposition to the war had developed over time.
”Quite literally on the night that shock and awe [...]